Amazon is not showing any indications of a wavering commitment to EBRs (E-Book Readers) and e-books!

You may see stories about e-book sales declining, but I think those may be based on a too small dataset (getting reports from the big traditional publishers, and missing not only indies ((independent publishers)) but Amazon’s own publishing).

This has a giant innovation, which may come to other models: it will connect via Bluetooth to play audio. It can’t play audio on the device itself, but Bluetooth speakers/headsets can be pretty inexpensive. I use a pair of Arctic brand headphones, no longer available, with our Fire TV. However, I also have Bluetooth speakers, the Amazon Echo, Dot, and Tap, and those should all work with it.

That new Kindle will also export your notes in a new way…another big improvement, nearly nine years in the making. 😉

is a great improvement on the Page Flip we’ve had on newer EBRs (E-Book Readers). It is coming as a wireless update to EBRs (I would be sure about all of the current generation…don’t know how far back it will go), Fire tablets, and the free Kindle reader apps for iOS and Android.

They wrote me personally and were nice enough to share links to some animations that show how it works on a

Not surprisingly, not exactly the same on the three type of devices, but I think it is good on all of them!

With the current Page Flip (on, for example, the current Paperwhite), you can flip back and forth in the book while maintaining your current spot in the book.

The new version shows you several pages at once in “thumbnails” (small representations):

Page Flip on a Kindle

This will make it much easier to navigate to graphs and other images. It’s possible this will turn the tide on the reluctance some students have had in using e-textbooks. It will also work well in things like cookbooks and encyclopedias…you could flip ahead to find a picture of a red panda, for example…maybe not as quickly, but more easily than you could with a p-book (paperbook).

They’ve done a help page, which also embeds a cute ad for it, with a sort of duel between a kid with a p-book and an adult with an e-book:

Throughout the short history of the Kindle (not even a decade yet), Amazon has continued to make our devices better after we’ve bought them, at no additional cost to us. Certainly, not every feature comes to every model ever made (in some cases, that wouldn’t be feasible technically) and there have been a few reversals (not to the device you already own, generally, but Bluetooth restores TTS…text-to-speech…access to books which has been absent from EBRs for soe time), but overall, onwards and upwards. 🙂

You should just receive the update “over-the-air” if you leave your device connected to wireless…it won’t necessarily happen in the next day, of course. When connected to wireless, be aware that you are using more battery charge…I sometimes leave by EBRs plugged in overnight.

includes The Color Purple (at AmazonSmile*) by Alice Walker for $2.99. The Pulitzer Prize/National Book Award winner is perhaps even more popular right now, with a successful Broadway musical. This is also a good opportunity to buy it as a gift, since you can get it at this price and delay the delivery until the appropriate gift-giving occasion. Remember to check the price before you click or tap that Buy button…the sale may not apply in your country, for one thing.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

So glad to see this update. I love page flip and use it to see how much further to a natural stopping spot sometimes (end of chapter or page break). I think this is one of my favorite non-original features. You know, stuff we did not have on day #1 back in…..2008, is that right? Anyway, somewhere around that time.

Regarding the first Kindle release, it was November 2007. I remember seeing it on the cover of Newsweek and showing it to my son at Thanksgiving dinner.

I was intrigued but not an early adopter. I didn’t jump on board until December 2009 with the $259 Kindle 2. Still my favorite, although it is in a battery inspired death spiral. I think it holds a charge for about half hour now. I keep it for sentimental reasons, and the fact I am a hoarder. I am too club fingered for touch screens, but with a stylus, make do. So now my PaperWhite is my favorite purely reading machine, but the Fire HDX 7 is the work horse because of its internet capability and ability to play Audible books (yes I am one of those people who find text to speech too mechanical–I love immersion reading for the Classics…very inexpensive, and it keeps you moving along). I am also probably one of the few people in the world who love Kindle for Mac. I set the font to huge, slouch back in my desk chair, and can read for hours on it. What I really like is the using it when I am reading a book in which I write a lot of notes. I also like the ability to easily copy passages out of other books and place them into notes in a book. I would like to see some of the innovations applied to Kindle for Mac and PC, but also understand that I am in a minority. What can I say, I owned a Commodore Pet in 1980 (probably why I am not an early adopter of tech now–I still don’t have a smart phone). I love huge keyboards and big screens (not that the Pet had a big screen).

Was it January of 2008 that Steven Jobs in his infinite wisdom pronounced the Kindle dead because people don’t read anymore (then two years later decided to punish Bezos for his brash defiance of not crashing and burning when Steve said he would, with agency model…I have richly enjoyed spending my recent $40 credit at Amazon from Apple).

Sextant:
Thanks for that photo! As an absolutely adoring fan of both acquiring books, and reading as much as humanly possible, I had many doubts about the transfer of REAL books to ebooks… Well it turns out I like to hoard ebooks too – maybe not *exactly* as much as paper books… but pretty close (as evidenced by my embarrassingly hefty kindle settlement from the recent lawsuit). I recently passed a number of books on my kindle account that I am also somewhat embarrassed about… It felt kind of like one of those “milestones” such as reaching an awful lot of miles on your car.
I say “Well it’s not only MY account” but I suppose I am the main perpetrator. I also tend to accumulate free books – because “what if I really want to read it and it’s not free later on” Or something even less rational.They are books. I’ve found that to supersede everything else.
I also find the format to be superior, not across the board, but in more ways than I would have imagined pre-kindle.
Thanks again for posting the image; it’s a particularly good one.

PS We had a Commodore VIC 20, never an Atari.
maybe that’s why I stuck with the books so much?? 😉

Oh, and I wanted to say, I also had a Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor)! I don’t run into very many people who had one…more who had a Commodore 64. My favorite “vintage” computer was a Kaypro. I would guess not too many of my readers remember those, but I liked the design for the time. 🙂

I guess I’m not like a lot on here. I went to Amazon one day and saw this thing called a Kindle and within minutes I had to have one. I knew I’d love it plus I had gotten away from reading for some odd reason. I’m still not sure why. On February 19, 2009 I bought a used Kindle 1 on Amazon with an SD card and a light for $275. Since then I have bought and/or sold 24 kindles. Some, like the Keyboard I sold, later regretted, and bought again. My point is I was hooked from the very beginning and I actually have that Newsweek cover saved in my pictures folder on my computer. I love that picture. Since 2009 I have read exactly two DTB’s. If it’s no available on the kindle I don’t want it. I keep going back and forth on buying a K1 because I always regretted selling mine. I needed to sell it to buy a K2 though? I need to buy a K1 but it seems like 100% waste of money.

You have the amazing admirable accomplishment (gotta love alliteration) of becoming a serious reader later in life. I suspect that might have something to do with it, since people who had a p-book in their hand almost all the time for most of their lives may have had their future vision at least blurred by habituation. 🙂

Yes for those that don’t know what Bufo is referring to I read my first book at 27 years old and that is thanks to NPR and Harry Turtledove. I heard them reading Harry Turtledove’s ‘Guns of the South’ one night while surfing channels and after a few minutes I stopped listening and bought the hardcover. I had to have it.

I was not illiterate. I just had no idea the joy I was denying myself. I did have book reports in school but I either faked them or just did not do them and got a 0 if that 0 would keep me a grade of D or more for the class. I faked them by reading every 15 or 20 pages and maybe read a few pages in each grouping in order to get some crap together to write down. I always got bad grades on these reports and I figure the teachers probably knew but never accused me of it.

I sometimes think of the wasted time I will never get back. Imagine all the books I could have read that I will now never be able to read. If I live to be 100 then that’s 73 years of reading. I could have had 90 years or more and a lot of books can be read in that 17 years. I’m just grateful I did not wait another 27 years to discover this wonderful gift of reading. Thank God for that. This is why I love, I mean love, to see kids reading. I get excited when I see kids reading a book.

OK, we are talking useless computers from the 70s and 80s. I had a Commodore Pet, a VIC 20, a Commodore 64, a Timex Sinclaire, and Kaypro II (the blue model not the spiffy black one with the 10 meg hard drive also known as Darth Vader’s lunch box.) I also have a Tandy PC 6 Pocket Computer which still works (and probably was the most useful of the pack well except for the Kaypro) and this is why I am no longer an early adopter of technology.

The Pet had 32 K of RAM, my Kindle Fire HDX has a million times more memory!

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post about my old computers and it has a few photos of the PET and Kaypro:

Allie, I have more books on my Kindle than I have life left to read them even if I live to be 100. The count is 897. I think I probably have an equal amount of dead tree books kicking around the house, most unread or with a book mark half way through. That is probably small potatoes compared to some people, but to me it is too many books, but I keep buying them! I wished I read 10% of what I buy.